Sophie Ngugi - A Child of the universe

What a contradiction! Mothers are not girls, and mothers are not students! But alas that’s the reality, in Kenya and other developing countries. I couldn’t help thinking about the contradictions in life where a child is supposed to be bringing up a child as I interacted with some teenage mothers mostly from Mukuru slums in Nairobi today. I got a call on Thursday this week (2nd July 09) from a Lucy a mother of over 100 girls, or is grandmother to as many children? I met Lucy earlier this year in the course of my work. Eventually we organized for a motivation talk and my friend Catherine accompanied me. While we interacted with these young women, or rather girls, many thoughts went through my head which I kept pondering about and posing some questions to the others as we did our best to have a few words of advice to these girls. Looking at the 50 girls, there was nothing peculiar or unique about them. They were looking smart, happy and they were no different from other 12 year ol...

Tabitha Ndila*(not her real name) was a humble young woman, determined to go past her secondary school education yet her family could not afford the fees required. She decided to go to work at the local centre as a cyber attendant where she sold air time and did photocopy, printing etc for her boss. It didn’t pay much but at least it gave her hopes, hopes that one day she would be able to get a college certificate and make her chances in life better. She had big dreams. Her father did not support this, “why should be a girl live away from the house”, he asked, yet he was not willing or able to pay a cent for her college education. He felt that Tabitha was old enough for marriage, at 22 years of age she ‘should get married and give him wealth not ask from him’. Tabitha persisted and worked hard while saving the little she earned. She hoped to save at least Kes 40,000 (approximately 460 USD) despite earning only Kes 4,000 (45 USD) per month which she used for her upkeep and...